IPL History: The only tied super-over in IPL
The 2014 edition of the IPL had an unusual game between KKR and RR - a tied game followed by a tied super-over.
Batting first, Rajasthan Royals scored 152 runs from 20 overs, with the help of a classy 59-ball 72 from Ajinkya Rahane.
Chasing a target of 153, The Kolkata Knight Riders were comfortably cruising towards victory. At the end of 18th over, they needed just 16 runs from 12 balls with 6 wickets in hand. But the 19th over from James Faulkner changed the course of the match. KKR were able to score only 4 runs in that over and lost 3 wickets. A decent last over from Kane Richardson made sure that KKR concluded the innings at the same score of 152.
KKR went out to bat first in the super-over with Suryakumar Yadav and Shakib Al Hasan taking the crease. As we can guess, it was James Faulkner who took the responsibility to bowl the crucial 6 balls.
The first ball saw Suryakumar Yadav being run-out while trying to snatch a double. Manish Pandey came to the crease to face the second ball. He nudged the delivery in front of square for a single. Shakib hit the third ball straight, only to hit the boots of Faulkner which ended up being another single. When the KKR dug-out started feeling the heat, Manish Pandey hit a six over long-on on the fourth delivery. Faulkner came up with a fine yorker on the fifth ball, which Pandey managed to guide to the leg-side for another single. Even though Shakib Al Hasan got a low full-toss on the last ball, he could only drive it to long-on. Trying to sneak a double, he fell short on the second run, setting a target of 12 for the Rajasthan Royals.
Steve Smith and Shane Watson came out to bat for RR, while the ball was in the hands of Sunil Narine. Watson managed to take a single off the first ball by driving a pitched-up delivery to the long-on fielder. Smith lashed the ball to the mid-wicket area to take 2 runs on the 2nd delivery.
In the third ball, Smith was a bit early in his reverse-sweep, which resulted in a single down the point-region. Just like the KKR innings, the first boundary came on the fourth delivery when Watson hit a four to the deep midwicket region. The fifth delivery was a straighter one from Narine and Watson could only drill it down to long-off for a single. The game was all down the last ball, where RR needed 3 runs to win.
When everyone expected a boundary from Smith, he had some other smart plans in his mind. He knew that since RR had hit more boundaries in the game, even if they could tie the scores, RR will be adjudged the winners.
Smith pushed the last ball from Narine towards the extra-cover region and took the calmest of doubles to make the team victorious without taking any risks. James Faulkner was adjudged the Man of the Match for his impressive bowling in the main game and super-over. This was one of the best super-over games in T20 cricket where 42 overs couldn’t determine the better team.